Speakers

James Kuffner

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CTO Symbotic

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James Kuffner is the Chief Technology Officer at Symbotic. In that role, James is responsible for building and advancing all Symbotic’s technologies and solutions. James has served as Symbotic's Chief Technology Officer since January 2025 and brings more than 30 years of experience in robotics within both academic and industry research. Prior to joining Symbotic, James was at Toyota Motor Corporation, where he held several leadership roles during his long tenure. Most recently, he was a Senior Fellow in charge of the company’s Software Development Center, after serving as Toyota’s Chief Digital Officer and Member of the Board. Prior to Toyota, James was a leader at Google for a variety of Engineering functions, including as the head of Google’s Robotics division, where he helped develop Google’s self-driving car and managed research projects. Before Google, James was an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, leading research and teaching both computer science and robotics. As the author of 125 publications and 40 patents in 3D graphics, robotics and autonomous vehicles, James is known as the co-inventor of the Rapidly Exploring Random Tree (RRT) algorithm for robot motion planning. James has a Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. in computer science from Stanford University.

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Jim Fan

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Research Scientist NVIDIA

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Dr. Jim Fan is the co-Lead of Generalist Embodied Agent Group (GEAR) at NVIDIA. GEAR’s mission is to build generally capable Physical AI. Dr. Fan’s team is spearheading Project GR00T, NVIDIA’s moonshot initiative at building the AI brain for humanoid robotics. Previously, Dr. Fan obtained his Ph.D. degree at Stanford Vision Lab. His publications have won several awards and nominations, including the Outstanding Paper Award at NeurIPS 2022. He spearheaded multiple impactful works on robot foundation models, AI gamers that play Minecraft proficiently, and general-purpose agents that learn to operate a computer. His works have been widely featured in news media, such as New York Times, Forbes, MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, The WIRED, VentureBeat, etc.

Sergey Levine

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Co-Founder Physical Intelligence

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Sergey Levine is an Associate Professor at UC Berkeley and co-founder of Physical Intelligence, which focuses on developing robotic foundation models. He received a BS and MS in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2009, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2014. He joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley in fall 2016. His work focuses on machine learning for decision making and control, with an emphasis on deep learning and reinforcement learning algorithms. Applications of his work include autonomous robots and vehicles, as well as applications in other decision-making domains. His research includes developing algorithms for end-to-end training of deep neural network policies that combine perception and control, scalable algorithms for inverse reinforcement learning, deep reinforcement learning algorithms, and more. In 2024, he co-founded Physical Intelligence (Pi), which aims to develop a general-purpose robotic foundation model.

Vivan Chu

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Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer Diligent Robotics

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Vivian is a 10+ year expert roboticist that specializes in human-robot interaction and has received high tier industry recognition including: recognized by MIT Technology Review on its 35 Innovators Under 35 list, being honored as a Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholar, honored as a Stanford EECS Rising Star, awarded Best Cognitive Robotics Paper Award at ICRA 2013 and featured on Robohub 25 women in robotics you need to know in 2016 list. In addition to creating Moxi and Poli, Vivian has used her HRI and machine learning expertise on other robotic platforms including PR2, Meka Robot and Kinova Jaco2. She has also worked at Google[X], Honda Research Institute and at IBM Research in Almaden (where she worked on natural language processing and intelligent information integration). Vivian completed her Ph.D. in Robotics at Georgia Tech where she was co-advised by her now co-founder, Dr. Andrea Thomaz (Socially Intelligent Machines Lab), along with Dr. Sonia Chernova (Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning Lab). Vivian received her M.S.E. in Robotics from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013, where she worked in Dr. Katherine J. Kuchenbecker Haptics Research Group in the GRASP Lab. She received her B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009.

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RJ Scaringe

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Founder & CEO Rivian

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RJ Scaringe founded Rivian in 2009 to help accelerate the world’s shift toward carbon neutral energy and transportation. Since starting Rivian from a clean sheet, he’s led the company to establish its vertically integrated technology platforms, build multi-program manufacturing capabilities, develop meaningful partnerships and set forth a strategic vision that transcends the profound change we’ll see within the transportation industry over the next few decades. An engineer at heart, RJ has meticulously built a diverse team obsessed with tackling hard problems while fostering an environment that rewards courage, creativity and teamwork. He operates from the belief that the only way to build the kind of world our kids’ kids deserve is through collaboration, not only within organizations, but also across industries and society. Today, Rivian develops and manufactures electric vehicles and charging infrastructure for the consumer and commercial markets. Rivian’s nearly $14 billion IPO in 2021 was the largest worldwide since 2014. Rivian’s first consumer products, the R1T and R1S, have received critical acclaim, including the R1T named MotorTrend’s Truck of the Year for 2022; and both the R1T and R1S earning the highest safety rating of Top Safety Pick+ from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) for 2023 and 2024. Most recently, Rivian was named the Best Luxury Brand of 2024 by US News and World Report. Rivian is also currently fulfilling Amazon's order for 100,000 electric delivery vans—the largest single order for commercial EVs ever placed.

Jamie Shotton

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Chief Scientist Wayve

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Jamie leads Wayve’s Science department, where he guides our research teams to unlock new research breakthroughs, to enable those breakthroughs to have meaningful impact for the business, and to disrupt both our technical and business strategy to ensure Wayve stays at the forefront of innovation. Before Wayve, Jamie was Partner Director of Science at Microsoft and Head of the Mixed Reality & AI Labs, where he shipped foundational features for Microsoft’s Kinect (Microsoft’s line of motion sensing input devices) and the hand- and eye-tracking that enable HoloLens 2’s interaction model (smart glasses). With a PhD in computer vision from the University of Cambridge, Jamie is a highly accomplished researcher and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2021.

Deepak Pathak

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Co-founder & CEO Skild AI

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Deepak Pathak is CEO & Co-Founder of Skild AI and Professor at Carnegie Mellon University working on developing an AI foundation model for robotics. He is known for pioneering contributions to AI including self-supervised learning, artificial curiosity and sim2real adaptation for robot learning. Deepak has received several prestigious honors including Sloan Fellow, MIT TR 35under35, Okawa Fellow, IIT Kanpur Young Alumnus Award and multiple Best Paper Awards. Deepak's research has been featured in popular press outlets, including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Quanta Magazine, Washington Post, CNET, Wired, and MIT Technology Review among others. Earlier, he received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and his Bachelor's from IIT Kanpur with a Gold Medal in Computer Science.

Heidi Schubert

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Director of Software and Autonomy Cobot

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Heidi leads the Software and Autonomy team at Cobot to make Proxie trustworthy and adaptable. She has more than 20 years of experience developing software solutions to challenging problems. Previous roles include leading the Amazon Prime Air Drone ground station team and leading the autonomy software for Amazon Astro. Heidi has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the Stanford Aerospace Robotics Lab.

Kyle Vogt

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CEO The Bot Company

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Kyle Vogt is the Founder and CEO of The Bot Company, a robotics startup making affordable household robots. He previously founded Cruise, which was sold to GM for $1 billion and ultimately completed 250,000 driverless rides. Previously, Vogt was a cofounder of Twitch. He studied Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at MIT.

Karthik Lakshmanan

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Head of Perception Zipline

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Karthik Lakshmanan is a robotics engineer with over a decade of experience building perception systems at the intersection of machine learning and robotics. He is currently an Autonomy Lead at Zipline, developing perception capabilities to scale Platform 2, a next-generation precision drone delivery system. Previously, he was a tech lead at Aurora Innovation, where he developed large-scale detection and tracking systems for self-driving trucks.

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Karthik holds a Master’s in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in EECS from UC Berkeley. He was featured in Netflix’s Working, in an interview with President Obama.

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Mike Brevoort

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Principal Engineer - AI Lead Mytra

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Leads AI and Computer Vision at Mytra. Over 25 years of experience scaling products from idea to production including at Lockheed Martin, Pearson, Slack, Gitpod and as a founder. Philly sports fan, Colorado transplant, loves the mountains.

Liyiming Ke

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Member of Technical Staff Physical Intelligence

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Liyiming Ke is a full stack robotist at Physical Intelligence researching on Machine Learning for Robot Manipulation. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Washington with her thesis titled "Data-driven Fine Manipulation". She built a chopsticks-welding robot that demonstrate fine motor skills and developed theoretical frameworks for robot learning. She has led human-robot interactive demonstration at AAAS in 2020 and has been selected as one of the Rising Stars in EECS 2023.

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Dennis Siedlak

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CTO / Founder Slip Robotics

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Dennis Siedlak is the CTO and co-founder of Slip Robotics, the Atlanta-based company revolutionizing trailer loading with mobile robots that can load or unload any semi in five minutes. Slip recently raised a $28M Series B led by DCVC and serves Fortune 500 manufacturers like John Deere, GE Appliances, and Nissan.

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Dennis earned his Ph.D. in aerospace systems design from Georgia Tech before building autonomous systems at The Aerospace Corporation, Volley Automation, and Waymo. At Slip, he leads engineering and data science, turning billions of telemetry points into safer, faster robot-as-a-service deployments. He holds multiple patents in robotic mobility and specializes in scaling hardware-software systems from prototype to 24/7 operations.

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Jason Ma

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Co-founder Dyna Robotics

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Jason Ma is co-founder at Dyna Robotics. He received his PhD from University of Pennsylvania, where he studied scalable reinforcement learning algorithms and foundation models for robot learning. His research has been recognized with honors such as RSS Pioneers, Apple and OpenAI Fellowship, Best Paper Finalist at ICRA 2024, Top 10 NVIDIA Research Projects of 2023, and covered by popular media such as the Economist, Fox, Yahoo, and TechCrunch.

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Boris Sofman

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Co-Founder & CEO Bedrock Robotics

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Boris Sofman is the co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics. The company is focused on enabling fully self-operating heavy machinery (enabled by a fairly inexpensive upfit) in sectors such as construction to drive improvements in the cost, schedule, safety, and predictability of projects and reimagine the operations of a modern General Contractor. Before Bedrock Robotics, Boris was an executive at Waymo, where he led autonomous trucking as well as key core technologies (including Perception, Reliability, and Freeways) in the push to launch autonomous cars to the public in the Waymo One ride-hailing network. Waymo robo-taxis have driven over 100 million driverless miles across 5 cities at superhuman levels of safety. Previously, Boris co-founded and led Anki, a consumer robotics company known for its innovative entertainment products. Boris holds a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University.

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Adrian Macneil

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Co-founder & CEO Foxglove

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Adrian Macneil is the CEO and co-founder of Foxglove, a company dedicated to increasing the GDP of robotics through foundational tools and infrastructure. Foxglove’s powerful visualization and data management accelerates robotics development from prototype to production. Prior to founding Foxglove, Adrian was the Director of Infrastructure Engineering at Cruise, where he helped scale from the first prototypes to hundreds of vehicles on the road.

Vinny Senthil

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Senior Software Engineer Chef Robotics

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Vinny leads platform software engineering at Chef Robotics, the first company to commercialize a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. As an early hire, Vinny built out core infrastructure that enabled Chef to scale from prototypes to robots delivering over 50 million servings in production, helping industry-leading food companies increase volume and meet growing demand. Prior to his time at Chef, Vinny worked on developer platforms at Google Cloud, helping launch Vertex AI and co-authoring its Python SDK which now sees over a million daily downloads.

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Vivek Bagaria

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Head of Autonomy Matic

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Vivek Bagaria is the Autonomy Lead at Matic Robots, a company with the mission of automating home chores to give back people their time and energy.

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Vivek holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor's from IIT Madras.

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At Matic, he introduced Rust and spearheaded its adoption across the whole software stack — establishing robust technical foundations throughout the company.

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Jess Clarke

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Director of Deployment Success Cobot

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A highly skilled program manager with a specialization in robotics and systems deployment. Jess excels in creating scalable processes, implementing automation technology, and optimizing supply chain operations. She has a strong customer-facing background, having worked at 6 River Systems/Shopify, Home Depot, and Manhattan Associates. In her most recent role at 6 River Systems, she established a technical operations PMO, driving standardization and process improvement, while overseeing a global portfolio of 100+ robotic deployments, showcasing her expertise in managing complex projects. Jess brings this experience to Cobot, as Director of Deployment Success overseeing all field implementations of Proxie.

Vibhav Ganesh

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Director of Engineering Shield AI

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Vibhav is a Director of Engineering at Shield AI, where he leads the Hivemind Strategic Projects Group, overseeing critical software and autonomy projects for the Hivemind SDK. His role places him at the critical intersection of product development and engineering teams. Previously, he served as the technical lead over various aspects of the AI pilot, including Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC).

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Vibhav holds a master’s degree in robotics and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

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Felipe Polido

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Co-Founder and Head of Technology Reframe Systems

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Felipe Polido is the Co-Founder and Head of Technology at Reframe Systems and is on a mission to build climate-resilient homes for all. He leads development of the next-generation manufacturing engine that merges digital-twin first design, physical AI, and advanced automation. With an M.S. in Robotics and over 20 patent applications and publications, Felipe has spent more than a decade advancing manipulation, machine vision, and motion planning technologies. Prior to Reframe, he was part of the DARPA Robotics Challenge humanoid program and spearheaded Amazon Robotics’ Sparrow solution for automated bin-picking. Passionate about design simplification at scale, Felipe’s mission is to build robotic systems that connect cutting-edge research with real-world applications.

Ethan Keller

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Design Automation Lead Reframe Systems

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Ethan’s career sits at the intersection of computation, design, and manufacturing. He currently leads development of a design automation pipeline at Reframe Systems, where he’s helping bring modular building systems to life through scalable, model-driven design tools.

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Prior to Reframe, Ethan spent five years at Onshape as a software development engineer, contributing to both the API and PartStudio teams. His experience building with and for Onshape gives him a unique perspective on how cloud-native CAD can power the next generation of automation.

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Outside of work, Ethan has spent over a decade volunteering with AguaClara Reach as their technical advisor. There, he developed an automated system for designing gravity-fed drinking water treatment plants within Onshape, supporting clean water access in communities throughout Central America.

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Rajesh Radhakrishnan

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Senior Director, Head of Autonomy Serve Robotics

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Rajesh Radhakrishnan is an AI and robotics leader with over 15 years’ experience spanning agricultural robotics, biotech, human–computer interaction, and mobility. He was the first co-founding engineer at Blue River Technology, where he built breakthrough AI and computer-vision technology that led to the largest-ever agricultural robotics acquisition by John Deere. At John Deere, Rajesh held multiple leadership roles and was part of the founding team that started the autonomous tractor group, scaling it from just six people to a major business unit and launching the company’s first autonomous tractors to market in three years. Today, he spearheads last-mile delivery innovation at Serve Robotics (Nasdaq: SERV) while advising and investing in emerging robotics startups.

Guillaume Binet

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Founder Copper Robotics

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Guillaume Binet, Founder of Copper Robotics, brings 25 years of tech experience, with 10 years focused on robotics. Before founding Copper Robotics, he was the CTO at Skyways (drones), VP of CORE Platforms at Motional (autonomous driving), and VP of Onboard Infrastructure at Argo AI (autonomous driving). When Guillaume is not working heads down on his startup, he likes to restore old electronics (family computers and pinballs), scuba dive and race cars.

Mahesh Krishnamurthi

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Co-Founder & CPO Vayu Robotics

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Mahesh is a technology entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in shipping consumer electronics & enterprise products, building mission driven & focused teams, at Vayu Robotics, Apple, Lyft and Intel Labs. In 2021, Mahesh co-founded Vayu Robotics, a startup backed by Khosla Ventures at the intersection of AI and Robotics, focusing on building next generation technology for sensing and mobility applications. During his leisure time, Mahesh coaches a middle school robotics team and enjoys playing competitive sports with his two boys.

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